Difference between revisions of "Server-side product indexing and search - Functional Specs"
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Those filters may also include user preferences for apps who do not want to do the personalization locally. | Those filters may also include user preferences for apps who do not want to do the personalization locally. | ||
+ | ==== Availability ==== | ||
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+ | We can filter by country of availability, by store (or stores) of availability, and number of scans (a proxy for wide availability) | ||
== Server-side indexing == | == Server-side indexing == | ||
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=== Similarity === | === Similarity === | ||
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+ | If we decide to support product match, we need to pre-compute and store lists of similar products. | ||
=== Non personalized sort order === | === Non personalized sort order === | ||
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If we expect that the app will only offer "better" products and not worst products, we may include things like the Nutri-Score or NOVA in the sort order. | If we expect that the app will only offer "better" products and not worst products, we may include things like the Nutri-Score or NOVA in the sort order. | ||
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==== Popularity ==== | ==== Popularity ==== | ||
We could also include a measure of product popularity (e.g. derived from scans) in the sort order. | We could also include a measure of product popularity (e.g. derived from scans) in the sort order. |
Revision as of 16:58, 19 May 2020
Search API
The search API is called by the app to retrieve a high number of generic search results (products) that match a query.
Match (required)
The search query needs to contain at least one required criteria.
Here are potential criteria that we could consider:
Match on category
The query specifies a category tag (e.g. en:cookies).
Pros:
- Can be used to display product recommendations for a given product (using the most specific category of the product)
- Can be used for a search box that is limited to categories (e.g. suggest as you type restricted to known categories)
- Can be used for a per category search interface that display 1st level choices, 2nd level etc. (e.g. first click on "Vegetables", then "Bananas" etc.)
- There could be ways to pre-compute per category results that could be used to speed up queries
Cons:
- Does not support freely typed search queries (e.g. with a product name or brand)
Match on keywords
Allow users to enter keywords that can be matched indifferently to product name, brand, categories etc. This is how the current search function on the OFF web site is implemented.
Pros:
- Can be used for a search box
Cons:
- Currently does not work well for products in multiple languages
- Difficult to do pre-computations to optimize queries
Match on product
Given a product as input, return "similar" products.
Pros:
- Can be used for products recommendations
- Similarity could be based on other things that the category (e.g. labels, ingredients, brands etc.)
Cons:
- It could be very expensive to retrieve similar products in real-time or to pre-compute all of them
- Does not work for category search of freely typed search queries
Optional filters
The search query can contain filters to restrict the result set. e.g. the country where the products are sold.
Those filters may also include user preferences for apps who do not want to do the personalization locally.
Availability
We can filter by country of availability, by store (or stores) of availability, and number of scans (a proxy for wide availability)
Server-side indexing
Based on the type of queries we want to support, we may be able and may need to pre-compute and store new information in the database to better support the queries.
Similarity
If we decide to support product match, we need to pre-compute and store lists of similar products.
Non personalized sort order
It is unrealistic to return all possible results to the calling app for all queries. E.g. if the query is "cookies", we cannot return tens of thousands of results. So we will need to use some kind of reasonable sort order that returns the most useful results for the app, without limiting the options for personnalization of the results.
Possible criteria to include in the sort order:
Product quality
If we expect that the app will only offer "better" products and not worst products, we may include things like the Nutri-Score or NOVA in the sort order.
Popularity
We could also include a measure of product popularity (e.g. derived from scans) in the sort order.